Tag Archives: courts

A 2nd Amendment Ruling

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The Supreme Court, by a 6-3 ruling, has struck down a New York law that required citizens to show a proper cause and good moral character in order get a license to carry a firearm outside the home. That “proper cause” and the goodness of a citizen’s “moral character” were as defined by the State’s government personnel, and if they didn’t feel like it, or if the “need” didn’t suit them, or if these Moral Superiors didn’t like the man, they blithely could deny the applied-for license.

Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the Court, said that was unconstitutional.

“The constitutional right to bear arms in public for self-defense is not ‘a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees,'” Thomas wrote.
Thomas added that there is “no other constitutional right” that requires an individual to demonstrate some sort of special need to government officers in order to obtain a concealed carry permit.
“That is not how the First Amendment works when it comes to unpopular speech or the free exercise of religion. It is not how the Sixth Amendment works when it comes to a defendant’s right to confront the witnesses against him. And it is not how the Second Amendment works when it comes to public carry for self-defense,” Thomas added.

And

New York’s proper-cause requirement violates the Fourteenth Amendment in that it prevents law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their right to keep and bear arms.

Here’s New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s (D) preemptive reaction to the then-pending ruling:

Hochul vowed in May to call for an emergency legislative session this summer to craft new gun legislation as a means to work around the expected high court decision that curtailed the state’s concealed carry permit law.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) announced that his office is

analyzing this ruling and crafting gun safety legislation that will take the strongest steps possible to mitigate the damage done today.

These are canonical examples of why the 2nd Amendment is so necessary.

Notice, too, that this ruling looks like the beginning of the end for the concept of a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees.

The Court’s ruling can be read here.

Rule of Law

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The matter of leaking the Supreme Court’s draft opinion on Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization has drawn into the open the Progressive-Democratic Party’s and its politicians’ utter contempt for law, along with these persons’ preference for our nation being ruled by men—so long as those men are members of Party.

Here are a couple of canonical examples. First up, President Joe Biden (D) through his Press Secretary, Jen Psaki:

Q    Why not criticize this leak?
MS. PSAKI:  Again, because I think what is happening here, and what we think is happening here, is there’s an effort to distract from what the actual issue here—
…
MS. PSAKI:  And we are not—we are working not—to not allow that to be the distraction.

Next up is Congressman Adam Schiff (D, CA):

I don’t care how the draft leaked. That’s a sideshow[.]

Laws are just distractions, sideshows, to be set aside, to be ignored, whenever they become inconvenient.

This disregard for the protection that laws give all of us against the vagaries, whims, egos of others of us and the preference for those vagaries, whims, egos—so long as it’s the right men who have them—need to be kept firmly in mind this fall.

Former President Donald Trump Has a Plan

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Former President Donald Trump (R) has a plan for recovering our nation from the ravages of Progressive-Democratic Party control over the last year and more, and that will continue to be inflicted over the next several months to three years. In the main, he’s on the right track; although I disagree with his constant harping on personalities, like his disparagement of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R). McConnell’s tactics, to take the particular case as illustrative, are not Trump’s but without McConnell’s skillful politics, there would be no Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch; we would have Merrick Garland inflicted on us. Without McConnell’s acumen, Trump would not have all those hundreds of conservative—which is to say, textualist—district and appellate court judges confirmed.

On policy, there’s also this Trump shortfall:

[T]he nation’s 45th president said his plan begins with recapturing GOP control of at least one chamber of Congress in November and creating a bulwark to stop the Biden agenda.

This is insufficiently specified. If Republicans succeed in gaining a majority in only one chamber of Congress, it must be the Senate. It’s in the Senate that the safety of the Supreme Court lies.

It’s in the Senate that treaties lie.

It’s in the Senate that Executive Branch nominations get confirmed or denied.

Even though the House of Representatives must originate revenue (i.e., taxing) bills and by tradition spending bills, it’s in the Senate where these live or die. It’s in the Senate (as well as the House) where budgets, allocations, and spending bills generally live or die.

It’s in the Senate that the safety of our republican democracy lies.

Ketanji Brown Jackson and the Second Amendment

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Short and sweet. And wrong. At Tuesday’s morning session of the hearing to confirm/reject Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson:

Senator Chuck Grassley (R, IA): Do you believe the individual right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental right?
Brown Jackson: Senator, the supreme court has established that the individual right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental right.

Notice that. A court says so. Not our Constitution—the second of our Bill of Rights—says so.

This should be disqualifying.

The Judge’s Ruling is Correct

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Michael Sussmann, the Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer (among other roles) moved in court to strike portions of Special Council John Durham’s indictment of him, including in particular, the indictment’s “Factual Background” section. Sussman claimed that the section had “prejudicial” information and “false allegations” and so would taint the jury pool from which his jurors would be drawn. DC District Judge Christopher Cooper waved the BS flag at Sussman’s move.

I’m not going to strike anything from the record. Whatever effect the filing has had has already passed.

That’s correct. More important, though, are these factors. One is that, of course the indictment contains “prejudicial” information: grand juries are, by design, one-sided affairs intended solely to determine whether there’s enough material to warrant a formal charge and a trial. That’s why the evidence presented to a grand jury is sealed until trial; only the fact of the indictment and the nature of the government’s case can be made public before that trial—and never made public at all if, with or without indictment, the government decides not to proceed to trial.

The other factor, regarding the “false allegations” claim, is a so what one. The accuracy of the allegations, along with the accuracy and believability of any facts or other evidence underlying the allegations, are for juries to determine at trial, not for judges to deny jury access to via prosecutorial presentation.